Clones Are Overwhelming TiVo 402
jfruhlinger writes "The first line from this CRN/Associated Press story says it all: 'Debra Baker tells people she has TiVo. But she really doesn't.' As cable companies offer their own DVR boxes to customers for no upfront cost and a lower monthly fee than the original, people are using TiVo as a verb but are frequently not using using the product or service itself in real life. The article notes that the cable company's DVRs don't have some of the archtypical TiVo features, such as the ability to guess what you'd like recorded based on your viewing habits."
Privacy concerns (Score:2, Interesting)
Such as selling your personal viewing habits to advertisers? I'm no tinfoil-hatter, but this is one of the main reasons I chose ReplayTV. I understand TiVo's data collection is aggregate, but the thought that someone keeps a record of everything I watch (or re-watch), and uses it for profit is a bit off-putting.
Kudos to the newcomers!
Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:5, Interesting)
Because that's what's really locking TiVo out of the digital cable biz. They can't directly operate on a digital cable wire, and the companies such as Scientific Atlanta are not releasing their decoding specs so that TiVo can make a box compatible with cable systems that run their backend equpiment.
Analog CATV is standardized, cable channel 27 in one town is on the same frequencies as cable channel 27 in another. OpenCable will basically do the same for digital. It should be noted however that OpenCable is leaving decryption and conditional access for others to handle... they're just defining a slot in which the system provider's choice of smart card that that will handle that stuff goes into.
Slashdot has written before that this isn't quite the same as Open Source in the way that it's usually thought of here, this is a hardware spec that pretty much gives up a single-channel digital bitstream to the device's wishes once the access card lets it go.
In the future, this could lead to "digital cable ready" TVs and devices, including TiVo that won't need the assitance of a settop box. But, of course, the present digital cable system makers don't want to give up their cash cow. That's why the current digital cable device makers can eat TiVo's lunch right now...
Better than TiVi (Score:5, Interesting)
The centerpiece is a PC running SageTV [www.sage.tv]. It uses a hardware mpeg encoder to capture video from my digital cable box and save it on a 250 GB hard drive. Encoding at the "DVD Standard Play" quality uses about 3 GB per hour of video and the quality is definitely acceptable. Also stored on the monster hard drive is my entire CD collection ripped to very high bitrate MP3. The hardware media card also includes a built-in radio tuner. The machine has a DVD burner in it as well, and SageTV glues it all together.
Now, the really cool part of it is, I can access the mpeg video files and MP3s over my home network. With an mpeg video codec, I can use any of a variety of players to play my recorded television anywhere in my house on a laptop. SageTV also offers a separate piece of client software that allows you to remote-control the PVR from any networked computer and play any of its recorded media -- so, if I'm in the garage with my laptop, I can call up the current TV guide and select a program to record right there without having to directly interact with the media PC.
TiVo runs Linux and is hackable, but still uses a proprietary filesystem for video storage. Plus, the folks at TiVo don't want you accessing the video externally anyway...
Scientific Atlanta 8000 from Brighthouse CFL (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't help but wonder if that's the path TiVo themselves will have to take in order to survive. We'll see.
If other people make a better / cheaper product , (Score:3, Interesting)
If my cable company (or some satellite company) wants to bundle a DVR with the service, so what? If you don't want to use it you don't have to - go buy a Tivo or build yourself an HTPC or whatever floats your boat.
I love my ReplayTV 4500 with a 120GB hard drive upgrade and lifetime subscription. It has all the Tivo-esque features I want and some more that it doesn't.
One day I may built a home theater PC as a toy but for now my RPTV fills all my timeshifting and commercial skipping needs.
Tivo's price point isn't competitive... (Score:1, Interesting)
I've got a cable DVR (Scientific Atlanta) through Cox, and yes, its software sucks by comparison (conks out if 3 programs happen to occur at the same time, other things too). But it's not sucky enough to pay a couple hundred $ a month plus a higher monthly fee just to get Tivo's extra features.
Mod This Up (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:From what I've seen (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, we were just talking about this today, and a co-worker of mine recounted an instance where an individual decided to give up his TiVo because it was too good at finding stuff he liked - he found he didn't have much of a life anymore besides catching up on all these cool TV shows he didn't know existed!
Troy, who finally ordered his TiVo this week.
Re:Privacy concerns (Score:2, Interesting)
I also wonder, if the ones that report back get into enough homes, would the Nielsen ratings people sue because their business model of statisical sampling is being threatened by another method with larger sample sizes?
Sometimes it works in their favor! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, after a while, the VCR failed her on a couple of separate instances of trying to record Dr. Phil. Now she wasn't so opposed to a TiVo anymore, and thought we could get one! So I started looking around, and was actually leaning toward a ReplayTV, as our house has no land-line and ReplayTV is already set up for broadband access.
But could I convince the wife that a ReplayTV was the same thing (and in some instances better) as a TiVo? Nope. Gotta have a TiVo. TiVo is what I kept telling her we needed, so by golly we'd better get a TiVo, and nothing else!
Ordered it earlier this week.
Troy
Re:Closed captioned for the standards impared (Score:3, Interesting)
I *love* my Tivo (Score:5, Interesting)
And no, this isn't flame-bait, and I don't want to get into a philosophical argument about my choice of metaphor. But... Mac owners that are also TiVo owners that are also x86 owners will truly know exactly what I'm talking about.
Re:Problem Seems to be Marketing (Score:5, Interesting)
They were want, $300 when first released? I bought mine for around $172 after rebate about 5 months ago. Amazon now has them for $129 after rebate. (All prices for 40 hour.)
I think Tivo needs to sell the hardware as cheaply as possible and live off the subscription fees. But the non-directv subscription fees are a little steep ($300 for lifetime).
OTOH Tivo's seem to hold their value really well. I recently ebay'ed a Series 1 Tivo with attached lifetime subscription for $356. Crazy...
Not correct (Score:5, Interesting)
Tivo does have patents, as well as ReplayTV (Score:2, Interesting)
If they win, they could really could become ubiquitous instead of disappearing because of the clone wars.
It's called propriety eponyms (Score:5, Interesting)
And now Tivo. Nothing new here. But it can be temporary too -- Nintendo almost became one in the early nineties but died out later for example.
Re:Like hoover (Score:3, Interesting)
Trademarks are highly over-rated.
Re:Better than TiVo (Score:2, Interesting)
I have been noodling around with MythTV and freeVo and hardwre MPEG-4 encoders are more expensive than my whole TiVo. Now factor in case, PSU, memory, video that can do SVideo out, and HD. I bet you'ce spent $600 or more.
my Sony DirecTiVo receiver and TiVo cost me $49 and $5 a month. I will be ahead of Linux MythTV costs if I use this unit for anything less than 9.1 years (have had it for two).
Re:It's called propriety eponyms (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Similar (Score:2, Interesting)
Sometimes it's necessary (Score:3, Interesting)
People aren't all as technically-saavy as the
Personally, I use my All-In-Wonder card and Gemstar Guide+ to do my digital recording. If someone asks me about it, I say something along the lines of having software and hardware that "basically turns my computer into a Tivo."
Sure, I can't advertise a product that uses their trademark as an improper noun, or say that you can record video using their trademark as a verb (e.g. "Tivo it"), but I can sure as hell explain it that way to people on a personal level.
There's nothing you can do to stop me, so Nyaaaaaaaaa!
Re:What I'd Like (Score:3, Interesting)
move to canada TivoCanada.com [tivocanda.com] (no really)! They have info on slicing xmltv stuff and uploading it to your tivo... but only if you are in unsupported region (i.e. tivo won't sell them service in canada). I guess that's a nother thing tivo is missing out on intenational sales, doh!
E.
Re:Obligatory Mythtv reference (Score:2, Interesting)
DEFAULT, DEFAULT, DEFAUT! (Score:3, Interesting)
As an OT....I wouldn't want to be using my cable company's listings for a PVR. The show often do not match what is on and are very often generic(ie The Simpsons episode description is quite often "Matt Groening's subversive animated satire about Springfield's hapless first family"
Thoughts on Tivo (Score:4, Interesting)
I was talking to a friend of mine who has one of the brand X sattellite PVRs and almost every time I talk to him about it, he realizes that his PVR doesn't do everything (or pretty much anything) that my Tivo does. Such as allow him to search and record all shows by name, apparently. Must be a pretty shitty PVR he has...
Sure you could throw together a bunch of open source software and have a digital PVR, but you're paying the Tivo guys for the slick UI and the smooth user experience. Sure you could probably do as good a job as they could given a year or two of development time, but in that time you could have also made enough to buy the service for life AND purchased a share of the company.
So yes, I think the Tivo guys will have to stay on their toes if they want to stay alive, but competition is good after all. I don't see them going out of business anytime soon.
tivo vs clones (Score:2, Interesting)
Tivo just works for me. The Suggestions and taping by program name instead of time is brilliant. I bought a Nokia MediaCenter for my parents in Norway, because Tivo isn't available there, and it drives me nuts every time I have to use to, since I've used Tivo.
There are no Suggestions. You have to tape by time (meaning, if the program changes time by 5 minutes, you lose part of the programing, or if the programing skip a week, you're taping whatever).
If you read the article, all the people who says the Cable provided DVR is good enough, just haven't tested Tivo.
experience with Comcast DVR (Score:2, Interesting)